August 8, 2014 — The cascading impact of Moscow's ban on many Western food imports this week may be starkest when it comes to fish.
Amid the global tug of war over the future of Ukraine, 34 tons of Ola Braanaas's salmon got caught in the middle.
"We have to sell our fish at any price now," the Norwegian salmon exporter, whose biggest customer was Russia, said on Friday. "The fish has to go."
The cascading impact of Moscow's ban on many Western food imports this week may be starkest when it comes to fish.
On Friday, Norwegian fish purveyors, for whom Russia is a key market, scrambled to find new buyers. Chile and the tiny Faroe Islands saw an opportunity to fill the gap in feeding the Russian appetite for salmon and other sea creatures. Shares in a Russian fish production company that until recently was partly owned by a U.S.-sanctioned Russian tycoon soared 19%.
"We consider the recent Russia events as a 'Black Swan' on the demand side," a fish industry analyst, Kolbjorn Giskeodegard, said in a research note, referring to the financial-markets term for an unexpected and consequential event.
Russian fish consumers should gird for higher prices, market-watchers said, while shoppers elsewhere could expect discounts.
Russia on Thursday prohibited for one year imports of beef, pork, poultry, fish, fruit, vegetables, cheese, milk and other dairy products from the U.S., Canada, the European Union, Norway and Australia. The move came in retaliation for sanctions against Russia's oil, banking, and military sectors, which the EU and U.S. said they enacted to pressure Russia to stop destabilizing Ukraine.
Read the full story at The Wall Street Journal